The device has finally arrived. At least for a handful of tech reviewers who had to actually spend their own cash to get one. Pat O’Brien, the CEO at Trump Mobile, promised shipments last week. Some folks got their boxes. The promise was only half kept.
Here is the brief history lesson. Back in June, this “gold,” “Made In America” Android phone hit the headlines. Price tag: $500. People threw down $100 deposits. Then reality set in. The manufacturing claims were fuzzy. The deadlines kept moving. The Terms and Conditions explicitly stated Trump Mobile could not guarantee the device would ever see the light of day. Standard practice, right? Then the data leaks. Customer info splashed onto the open web via a third-party provider. The FCC filings confirmed the chaos. But sure. Let’s talk about the phone now that it exists.
The Unboxing
It is real. CNET opened the package. A golden smartphone sits inside. There is an American flag etched on it, but if you count the stripes, you will notice only eleven are present. The box itself is black. Sleek. It bears that same flag motif. You know the type, the kind your uncle might wear. It says “assembled in the USA” right on the packaging. Not made here. Just assembled. The jury is still out. Inside you find a wall plug, a braided USB-C cable, and the SIM tool. The camera bump sports the words “Trump Mobile.”
The design raises eyebrows. NBC News noted it is longer than the iPhone 17. Slim bezels. A punch-hole camera. If you look closely, it looks almost identical to the HTC U24 Pro from 2024. Coincidence? Probably not.
Specs and Surprises
Here is what powers it. 512GB of storage. And wait for it. A headphone jack. Yes. An actual analog port while the rest of the industry abandoned them years ago. The screen is a 6.78-inch panel. 50-megapixel camera in the front. The battery is 5,000mAh. The chipset is anonymous. An unnamed Snapdragon. Patrick Holland at CNET ran some benchmarks. He suspects an 8-core processor, likely the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, but who knows? Performance levels match mid-range Androids from 2020 or 2021. The Galaxy Z Fold 2, maybe.
Brian Cheung at NBC had the simplest takeaway of all: “It works like any other phone.”
There is one app pre-loaded that demands attention. Truth Social. It lives on the home screen. Of course it does. There is nothing unusual about the former president having a communication tool branded with his name running exclusively on hardware branded with his name, is there? It feels intentional. Is that weird?
